Live, from New Jersey ... is Joe Piscopo actually going to run for governor?

NEW YORK -- Joe Piscopo had just gone to a commercial break during his New York City morning radio show when his producer, Frank "Five Boroughs" Morano, interjected with a query.

Morano said he spent part of the weekend playing Trivial Pursuit with his parents, only to be stumped by this question: "Which 'Saturday Night Live' cast member was best known for playing President Reagan, Frank Sinatra, and Jesus Christ?"

"I said 'Joe Piscopo,' but the card said 'Phil Hartman,'' Moran recalled, slightly annoyed. "Didn't you ever play Jesus?"

As of Thursday evening, Piscopo said he still hadn't set a date for an announcement, nor had he decided whether he'd run as a Republican or an independent. He has three weeks until the deadline for the 1,000 petition signatures he'd need to run in the June 6 Republican primary.

If he does enter, Piscopo, a 2015 inductee into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, would likely to shake up what has so far been a crowded but relatively lackluster race.

He's the first to admit he hasn't been a household name in decades. But Piscopo brings something most of his competitors don't have: name recognition, with a portion of the population that remembers the days when he and Eddie Murphy were the top two names on "SNL."

A recent Fairleigh Dickinson University poll found only 18 percent of Republican voters in the state favor the early front-runner for the GOP nomination, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno. Thirteen percent said they preferred "someone else," while 12 percent said Piscopo.

Meanwhile, the Democratic front-runner, Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs banking executive, has spent $11 million of his vast fortune on the race, but only slightly less than 40 percent of the electorate is aware he's even running.

Comedian Joe Piscopo hosts his morning-drive radio show on The Answer 970-AM in New York City. (Photo by Brent Johnson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Ben Dworkin, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said Piscopo would instantly become "an upper-level candidate."

"He'd bring some color and notoriety to the race," Dworkin said.

But Piscopo -- who grew up in North Caldwell in Essex County and now lives in Lebanon Township in Hunterdon County -- insists he wouldn't want to rely only on his fame.

"It's not in my blood to do that," Piscopo said. "You could finesse this and caress this, joke your way through it, do a song, shake hands, meet people, say 'I'm gonna make it great.' No. It's time for specifics."

All of this, of course, invites comparison to President Donald Trump, another New York celebrity who blossomed in the 1980s. Like Trump, Piscopo has never held elected office. And the comedian touts a populist message that Trump fans will likely find familiar.

Now, Piscopo is hoping to ride a similar tide into the Statehouse.

"You need someone from the outside, man," said Piscopo, an early Trump supporter who appeared at a Trump campaign rally in Florida last year. "Someone out of the Trenton box to come in and turn Trenton inside out and backwards and be the true voice of the people. It's time for the people politicians."

Twice divorced, Piscopo has custody of his 6-year-old daughter, and during the week, he goes to bed around the same time as her so he can rise at 3:45 a.m. and make the one-hour drive from the fields of west Jersey for his four-hour morning-drive show on The Answer 970-AM in New York for the right-leaning Salem Broadcasting.

Piscopo has spent the last three years hosting the show, pairing a lighthearted mix of jokes and riffs on the day's headlines with in-studio and phoned-in interviews with pols and pundits. The conversations often veer conservative. Numerous figures from the Trump-sphere -- Reince Priebus, Kellyanne Conway, Roger Stone -- have appeared as guests.

"News is our meat," Piscopo, dressed in a black suit and a silver-striped tie, said on the air recently. "The show is my homework."

On the weekends, you can often find him doing standup at clubs or special gigs.

Piscopo is used to long odds. While living with his first wife in Plainsboro in the late 1970s, he decided to audition at the Improv comedy club in Manhattan. As a fledgling comic, he was assigned what they call the "check spot" -- when people at their tables get their checks and the show is virtually over.

"You never want to be in the 'check spot.' Ever," Piscopo explained. "Because people look and the check and go, 'Oh my god, nothing's this funny.'"

Eventually, Piscopo scored a spot on "SNL" in 1980 when the sketch comedy show was looking for replacements after the original cast left. A friend got a writing job with the show and talked its executive producer into inviting Piscopo to audition. Then, as now, Piscopo says his strength was the ability to sense what people most want.

"They wanted a utility guy, and they hired me," he said.

Piscopo was part of the wave of "SNL" performers hired for the first season after creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels departed. The transition was a disaster for NBC. Most of the cast was fired. But Piscopo and another up-and-comer -- Eddie Murphy -- survived.

Piscopo distinctly recalled the two being called into new producer Dick Ebersol's office on the day everyone else was canned.

"Everybody got whacked," Piscopo said. "But Eddie and I, we could care less. So Dick Ebersol seats us in Lorne's office -- Eddie and me. He goes like this: 'We decided to keep you fellas.' And I go, 'Great. Dick, we gotta go.'"

Sinatra, a Hoboken native, still plays a part in Piscopo's act. The comic often performs his own version of "The Theme From 'New York, New York'" at events, re-written with Jersey-centric lyrics. And sitting on the floor of his office are records by Ol' Blue Eyes.

Both Piscopo and Murphy left after the 1984 season for Hollywood. Piscopo acted in a few movies -- like 1984's "Johnny Dangerously" and 1986's "Wise Guys" -- and in TV commercials as a pitch man for Miller Lite.

But his career never reached the same heights as Murphy, whose nearly 40 films have grossed more than $3.8 billion worldwide.

In 1998, Piscopo said, he was approached to run for governor as an independent shortly after Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota, but his second wife talked him out of it.

Then, a few years ago, Fox News host Neal Cavuto -- a Mendham resident -- brought up the idea during an on-camera interview. Piscopo later asked former Gov. Tom Kean what he thought of the idea.

"He said, 'Joe, no one loves Jersey more than you do. You're smart enough. And you could do it.'" Piscopo recalled. "It was a serious back-and-forth. And I went: Wow, wouldn't that be something?"

Kean, a Republican, confirmed the story.

"As you know these days, politicians aren't the most well-liked category," Kean told NJ Advance Media. "Someone who's given as much as he has to the state of New Jersey is qualified. So if he wants to get into the mix, he should."

Still, Piscopo has the disadvantage of being largely unknown by voters who aren't old enough to remember the '80s, said Matthew Hale, a political science professor at Seton Hall University.

"He'd add a little bit of gloss and sizzle to a sleeper of a race," Hale said. "But I don't think that will last so long."

Last year's populist candidates -- Trump and Bernie Sanders -- lost in New Jersey.

Running as a Republican might also be a challenge considering it's so late in the race. Guadagno has already won coveted endorsements from four GOP county organizations.

Plus, experts argue that Piscopo would have tough time gaining ground as an independent. Not only is New Jersey is entrenched in party politics, but running a third-party campaign is expensive because you have to fund ads in the costly New York and Philadelphia media markets.

Piscopo admits fundraising would be his biggest hurdle. He doesn't have Trump's millions to funnel into a campaign, despite his success in show business.

And experts say an independent Piscopo bid would probably end up bolstering Murphy, because he'd siphon away votes from the Republican nominee.

Piscopo counters that he was a Democrat for most of his life and could pull votes from both parties.

"I can't stand when people yell at each other on TV or the radio," Piscopo added. "And I'm not gonna do that. I don't hate anybody, by the way. I don't hate the Clintons or anything. ... I don't hate liberals."